First Quarter Performance Slowed Sharply, Gucci Suspected New Logo To Attract Consumers

The competition for head luxury has become increasingly fierce. Gucci, which is slowing this year, is trying to attract more consumers' attention.

According to the fashion business bulletin, yesterday Gucci WeChat public number and micro-blog official account were suddenly changed to new patterns. The two G from the front face to the same direction overlapped. The font also changed from the serif font in 2015 to a more polished bold, which had a high degree of agreement with the brand new font Logo, which attracted the attention of the industry and consumers.

It is noteworthy that this is the first time that Gucci has used dual G Logo as an official account head, but it is simply for promotion of new products or a comprehensive replacement of Logo, giving rise to speculation. Up to now, Gucci has not responded to the move, and its official account header on Instagram has not been updated.

In the era of commercial society, Logo has been alienated as a symbol of luxury brand premium. It has become the second price tag of products, and is synonymous with the status and economic strength of luxury goods owners.

Logo is originally a concrete embodiment of the abstract concept of "brand", which aims to convey the message conveyed by the brand in the most concise way. For Gucci, which has been established for 98 years, dual G Logo is a symbolic element that grows with the brand. The most consumer familiar is the fully symmetrical dual G, which has been used as a printing element in Gucci's handbag design for many times.

In the 90s of last century, under the guidance of the creative director Tom Ford, the double G Logo changed for the first time, changed from symmetry to upside down and close down design, and then evolved into the reverse but not overlapping style of the printed pattern. The double G of the Gucci head is the fourth version of the Logo history. It first appeared in the Marmont series handbag launched by Gucci in 2016, that is, the first series released by the current creative director, Alessandro Michele.

According to the trend list released by the fashion business platform Lyst last year, Gucci double G Logo became one of the most popular Logo in 2018. Marmont handbags and double G belts have been rated as the most popular luxury products among young consumers for several consecutive quarters. The trend has already covered the handbag products of the first few designers, and even extended to a single product line.

What it means is that the new Logo suspected by Gucci is similar to that of rival Louis Vuitton Logo. At present, the WeChat public number of the latter is the Logo with two initial capitals overlapped.

In fact, with the trend of fashion going back to 1980 and 1990s, Logo is the most visible icon reflecting brand image in today's highly visually oriented and easily distracted consumer's information world.

According to fashion business Daily, at least 7 luxury brands have announced the replacement of brand Logo in the past two years. Besides Gucci, luxury brands such as Fendi, DIOR and Burberry have also started a new article on Logo.

Since the beginning of the year, the single product with Fendi Logo has suddenly emerged social media. Kim Kardashian, Hailey Baldwin, Rita Ora, Nicki Minaj and other celebrities have put on large scale printed copies with the classic "double Minaj".

Fendi's "double F" logo was designed by the brand creative director Karl Lagerfeld in 1965. One of the "F" stands for "Fur", that is, the most representative fur of the brand. The other "F" means Fun, emphasizing that the brand should be fashionable and interesting. With the change of times, Fendi has recently interpreted the "double F" logo as "Fendi Forever".

Half a month ago, two buses with the latest Burberry Thomas Burberry Monogram printed on the streets of Shanghai were in the streets of Hangzhou. At the same time, Qianjiang new town also staged a large-scale lighting show with TB printing as the theme, aiming at improving the recognition degree of new Logo in consumers.

It is reported that TB printing, led by Burberry creative director Riccardo Tisci, was released on the eve of the first show in August 2018, inspired by the classic Logo of the brand in 1908. This is the first time that the brand has made any subversive changes to the Logo design in the past 20 years.

In addition, DIOR, the core brand of LVMH, also changed the Logo of most occasions and products to all capitals without official announcement. In 2018, it used Monogram printing to print the classic saddle bag Saddle bag of John Galliano in 1999.

However, although the new Logo has brought luxury brands to a youthful trend, the ride is not necessarily the end of the brand's long-term development.

Some analysts pointed out that Gucci suddenly selected the Logo of the most popular product as the head when the performance slowdown occurred. It seems that the CEO Marco Bizzarri and Alessandro Michele also began to encounter bottlenecks. Marco Bizzarri once said that luxury fashion is a rapidly changing industry. The Logo trend is not over yet, but it needs to find ways of evolution.

Earlier, there were also concerns about whether the creative director Alessandro Michele, who had been in office for four years, could continue to create freshness for consumers. He believed that consumers had entered the aesthetic fatigue period for Gucci. According to the fashion business Daily data, in the first quarter of March 31st, Gucci sales increased by 24.6% to 2 billion 326 million euros, the growth rate slowed sharply compared with 37.9% in the same period last year, and the growth rate of the company also slowed down. The increase in the fourth quarter of last year was 28%.

Marco Bizzarri admitted to its employees as early as last year that brand turnover is not likely to grow at a rate of 50% to 60% every month. The slowdown after explosive growth is normal. Jean-Marc Duplaix, chief financial officer of Gucci cloud group, also said that after two years of "absolute special growth", Gucci is now in the normal stage. The group will usher in a turning point in the second half of this year, but the change will be gradual.

Some industry analysts are skeptical about this. If Kai Yun group can not advance the next growth point with explosive force, then the peak time for group to rely on the core brand Gucci has passed.

Aware of this, Marco Bizzarri has started leading the Gucci team to launch a new strategic plan. At the beginning of this year, Gucci released the first beauty Michele Gucci Beauty, which was dominated by Alessandro Michele. In particular, it chose the first place of the new lipstick in the US, which is now in deep trouble in the retail market. To a certain extent, it followed the "lipstick effect" before landing in Europe, Southeast Asia, China and Australia.

Earlier, Gucci also launched a series of handbags in collaboration with Losangeles actress and experimental musician Zumi Rosow. The perfume business led by Alessandro Michele is also expanding and accelerating the launch of new Zumi products. Gucci even opened the D home cor Collection flash store in Milan during its home show, which officially launched the potential market for home, after which the brand also said it would launch high-end jewellery products.

Kai Yun group has promised to recruit multi-ethnic talents, including creative teams, in key functional departments and leading positions, and will train global 18 thousand employees in global culture awareness. Although no precise timetable has been set to achieve the target of 10 billion euros in initial sales last year, Gucci expects its sales to double at market growth in the coming years.

There is no doubt that luxury is a business that precipitates time. Whether it is to change Logo or expand its business category, brand remodeling can not be established overnight. Once the judgement is wrong, it will be faced with the danger of being eliminated by the market.

As of press release, Kai Yun group rose 0.62% to 516.2 euros, the market value of about 64 billion 800 million euros, will launch next year, the series of beauty products, Hermes shares fell 0.63% to 630 euros, the market value of anti cloud Group recorded 65 billion 600 million euros.